Don't hold your breath for Amnesty International to call it a war crime, or for the UN to call it immoral. They save such words for people they don't like.

Hizbullah Recruits Children Barely 10 Years Old

According to Roz Al-Yusuf, "Hizbullah has recruited over 2,000 innocent children aged 10-15 to form armed militias. Before the recent war with Israel, these children appeared only in the annual Jerusalem Day celebrations, and were referred to as the 'December 14 Units,' but today they are called istishhadiyun ['martyrs']..."

"Hizbullah has customarily recruited youths and children and trained them to fight from a very early age. These are children barely 10 years old, who wear camouflage uniforms, cover their faces with black [camouflage] paint, swear to wage jihad, and join the Mahdi Scouts [youth organization]...

"The children are selected by Hizbullah recruitment [officers] based on one criterion only: They must be willing to become martyrs."

The Children Train to Become Martyrs

"The children are educated from an early age to become martyrs in their youth, like their fathers, and their training is carried out by the Mahdi Scouts youth organization... [This organization], which is affiliated with Hizbullah, teaches the children the basic principles of Shi'ite ideology and of Hizbullah's ideology... The first lesson that the children are taught by Hizbullah is 'The Disappearance of Israel,' and it is always an important part of the [training] program...

"The Mahdi Scouts organization was founded in Lebanon on May 5, 1985... According to the organization's website, the number of [scouts] who had undergone training by the end of 2004 was 1,491, and the number of scout groups which had joined [the organization] was 449, with a membership of 41,960. According to the organization's most recent statistics, since 2004, 120 of its members have been ready to become martyrs.

"The organization's goal is to train an exemplary generation of Muslims based on the [principle of] 'the rule of the jurisprudent' [a founding principle of the Islamic Revolution in Iran], and to prepare for the coming of the Imam Mahdi [the Shi'ite messiah]. Its members, including the children, undertake to obey their commanders, to bring honor to the [Muslim] nation, and to prepare themselves for helping the Mahdi [when he comes]."

"A Nation With Child-Martyrs Will Be Victorious"

According to the article, Na'im Qasim, deputy to Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, said in an interview on Radio Canada: "A nation with child-martyrs will be victorious, no matter what difficulties lie in its path. Israel cannot conquer us or violate our territories, because we have martyr sons who will purge the land of the Zionist filth... This will be done through the blood of the martyrs, until we eventually achieve our goals."

TIME magazine mentioned the Mahdi scouts a few weeks ago. Wow, that salute looks familiar.

Early this morning, Ra'ed Mohammad El-Nahhal was killed. El-Nahhal was a leader in the "Naser Salah El-Deen Brigades," which is the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees.

While he was driving his car at the time, it was not a Zionist helicopter or drone that sent a missile down his throat, but some other PalArab pumped several bullets into his head.

Which means that the unfortunate El-Nahhal will not get a huge funeral with people waving terror flags; Reuters will not be sending any cameramen to photograph his remains; there will be no car swarm; his family will not get thousands of dollars from Iran or Saudi Arabia; no posters of El-Nahhal will be printed up and plastered all over "refugee camps"; he will have no streets or stadiums named after him; no international human rights organizations will scream about "extrajudicial killings" in their self-congratulatory press releases, no one will protest his killers. People who want to Google him will only find mention at the PCHR site and a Zionist blog.

Poor guy had the misfortune to be murdered by a Palestinian Arab. And no one cares when that happens - it is a dog-bites-man story.

We are now at 64 PalArabs killed by their own people (that I know of) in the two months since the Israeli incursion began.

UPDATE: The PRC is blaming the death on hitmen hired by Israel. So if any PalArab is stupid enough to believe that (is it even a question?) he still has a shot at fame and martyrdom!

Regarding the situation in South Lebanon, the Secreatry-General [sic] said that "both parties have to respect the ceasefire...Parties with complaints on the ground, they should come to General Pellegrini, not take matters into their own hands...It’s a bit like having a football match where one of the teams also attempts to play the referee. You cannot be a team in a football match and the referee at the same time."

Kofi Annan is a complete idiot, and his analogy is not only false but offensive.

When one is dealing with issues of life and death, you do not rely on a third party - you rely on yourself. To say that a war is like a football match is breathtaking in its naivete.

When the "referee" has a history of favoring one side over the other, he is no longer a referee - at best he is an ineffectual bystander, at worst he is an enemy.

On 30 August the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) withdrew from the general area of Bastra and the area south of the Kafr Shuba and Shaba villages along the Blue Line in the Eastern part of South Lebanon. UNIFIL has established checkpoints and will carry out intensive patrolling to confirm that the IDF are no longer present in this area. UNIFIL plans to handover the area to the Lebanese Armed Forces.

Notice how UNIFIL defines its role - not to catch weapons smuggling from Syria, not to ensure that Hezbollah does not re-establish itself in the vacuum - but only to see if Israel is really gone. Which will require "intensive patrolling," as if the IDF is trying to hide.

After all of the sound and fury about 1701 and the Israeli hostages and the need to disarm Hezbollah and how important it is to stop illegal arms imports into Lebanon, in the end the UN is only concerned with one thing - getting Israel out of the way so that Hezbollah can be safely re-armed with no interference from the "referee."

In October 2000, Maher Hathout attended a rally in Lafayette Park across from the White House. His speech was captured on video for posterity by the Investigative Project on Terrorism. He told the assembled crowd that he was not surprised by what he called the "atrocities committed by the apartheid brutal state of Israel." After all, he reasoned, "butchers do what butchers do, and ... what is expected from a racist apartheid [state] is what is happening now."

Fast forward six years. The Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations announced last Tuesday that Hathout, president of the Islamic Center of Southern California and a senior adviser to the Muslim Public Affairs Council (mpac), would receive its prestigious John Allen Buggs Award in luncheon ceremonies on October 5. The award is given annually for what the commission describes as "outstanding human relations work."

A man who called Israel a nation of butchers (he didn't stop there; he has also accused the United States of committing state terrorism) is about to be honored with a major award for effective practices in human relations work. Is this any different than giving, say, David Duke an award for healing racial relations?

The UN has no problem loudly condemning Israel over their use of cluster bombs as being "completely immoral."

I can't claim to know when or where Israel used those munitions, nor in what context. I am troubled that there are apparently some unexploded bombs still dotting Lebanon that can injure or kill innocents.

But the use of such bombs do have a place in war, and without the UN knowing the exact circumstances, their self-righteous posturing about morality comes off as more than hypocritical.

But most hypocritical of all is that the UN is silent on the thousands of anti-personnel rockets that were built in Syria and shot by Hezbollah; built to maximize damage and aimed at the general population of Israel. To use the words "completely immoral" to describe Israel's activities aimed at Hezbollah when the UN itself turns a blind eye to what can only be described as attempted genocide against Jewish men, women and children shows once again that morality is not something that Kofi Annan is qualified in the least to speak about.

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs just came out with a preliminary report on the Hezbollah rocket war against Israeli civilians. A simple fact that the UN does not seem to be interested in is:

From July 13 to August 13, the Israel Police reported 4,228 rocket impacts inside Israel from rockets fired by Hizballah. No geographical area in the world has sustained such a large quantity of rocket strikes since the Iran-Iraq war in the early 1980s.

Here is a small amount of the damage done by just one of those 4,228 rockets (other pictures in the report):

When the UN finds in itself the ability to describe Hezbollah as "completely immoral," it will go a tiny way towards being able to be taken seriously when it condemns a nation that agonizes over every action that may kill an innocent human being.

Until then, at least in the context of Israel, it is simply a terrorist tool.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

I use Firefox, and I had not noticed that IE seems to get thoroughly hosed when viewing my page. I had been playing around a little with a three-column template that seems to be somewhat better behaved under IE so I am changing the blog to use that one. There are still some tweaks I wanted to do to this template but at least it seems to work for all users again.

Please let me know when and if you have problems viewing my blog so I can crank up IE and see if I can figure it out.

[Hezbollah] raises large sums of money in private homes and public places in Lebanon: Businesses, mosques, education institution, petrol stations, shopping centers, roadblocks and more. It uses thousands of "charity boxes" spread among populations, as well as national fund raising campaigns.

Part of the activity is carried out in cooperation with other Hizbullah social-economic institutions.

For example, IDF soldiers captured in Hizbullah members' houses at the village of Aita al-Shaab leaflets distributed in homes, schools and stores, encouraging people to raise funds for the organization.

The leaflets feature a drawing with the message that the donations are aimed at purchasing weapons for the destruction of the State of Israel. The leaflets read: "In order for all of our houses to become part of the resistance (Hizbullah) – this is the resistance box – place it in your home."

The picture shows a charity box designed as the Dome of the Rock with a photo of the former Hizbullah secretary-general. Coins inserted into the box turn into bullets when they emerge from the box and smash a Star of David symbolizing Israel.

MARTYRDOM videos found by police investigating the alleged airline terrorist plot contain chilling statements made by young men who are apparently willing to die as suicide bombers.

In one of the films, recorded shortly before a spate of arrests on August 10, a man is seen talking to the camera and stating: “As you bomb, you will be bombed; as you kill, you will be killed.”

The would-be martyr said he hoped that Allah would be “pleased with us and accept our deed”. He continued, reading from a script, citing verses from the Koran and listing his reasons for “action that I am going to undertake”.

In another search, police found a last will and testament that concluded: “What should I worry when I die a Muslim in the manner in which I am to die? I go to my death for the sake of my maker, whom if wishes can bless limbs torn away.”

I've seen people argue that Islam is inherently evil, and I've seen people argue that we shouldn't blame an entire group based on their fanatics and that Islam is a religion of peace. I've read opinions and articles from the gamut of opinion from the pro-jihadists to the most right-wingers. As a pure religion (as opposed to a political ideology), I admire Islam in many ways. I try very hard to give all people the benefit of the doubt, even as I read about polls where a large percentage of ordinary Muslims condone terror.

But the quotes above crystallized for me what has been bothering me since 9/11.

We have not yet seen a visceral, passionate outrage from the Muslim world against terror.

We have seen many examples of Islamic passion over the past five years. We've seen deadly riots and peaceful demonstrations over cartoons they deem blasphemous. Muslims pour into the streets over any perceived slight to their faith.

Their faith itself inspires passion, and in general this is an admirable thing. I wish that Jews would become much more passionate in the defense of their people and religion.

But, if Islam is truly as it represents itself to the Western world, how come there are not spontaneous demonstrations happening right now as a reaction to the quotes above? If Islam is a peaceful religion, Muslims should be far more insulted at the perversity shown above than Westerners.

Why is a cartoon comparing Mohammed to terrorists more objectionable than terrorists invoking Mohammed and Allah to justify mass murder?

By any reasonable standard, assuming that the peaceful definition of Islam is accurate, the terrorists are treating Islam far more insultingly than any non-Muslim could. They are quoting the Koran to justify what can only be termed a gross perversion of the faith. How can a people who are so keenly attuned to any slight be suddenly so deaf?

Since 9/11, every condemnation of terror that I've seen from the Muslim world has been devoid of passion. The words might be there but the feeling of true outrage at the hijacking of their very faith has been absent.

It just doesn't jive that a people so emotional in their defense of their faith from blasphemy can become so rational when condemning those who are supposedly hijacking that same faith to justify murder. Where is the visceral condemnation of terror?

I can think of two possible reasons:

Muslims are so paranoid and perceive themselves as so embattled that they will close ranks around their own against the outside world, no matter how disgusting the terrorists are.

The Islamic faith itself is not really nearly as peaceful as it pretends to be. (In this case, I mean the reality of Islam today, not the theoretical academic version. I am not qualified to critique Islam purely as a religion.)

I am reluctant to believe the latter one, but either option does not bode well for a true solution to Islamic terror. Daniel Pipes likes to say that "Radical Islam is the problem; moderate Islam is the solution." I would like to believe that, but if moderate Islam truly exists - and if it is truly Islam - its adherents need to show at least the same passion for life that the Islamists do regularly for death.

The lack of the visceral disgust of terror in the name of Islam, the failure of the "Muslim street" to rise up against those who are supposedly perverting their faith, means that these moderates do not exist in any meaningful way.

Many of the photographs from Beirut prominently show the results of a graphic artist:

Beirut, LEBANON: A Lebanese woman sits on the wreckage of her apartment in a flattened building in devastated Beirut's southern suburb, 28 August 2006. AFP PHOTO/ANWAR AMRO (Photo credit should read ANWAR AMRO/AFP/Getty Images)

This is a bit more subtle than the egregious photo manipulations and stagings that were shown in Lebanon, but think about this:

Who is the intended audience for these posters?

The professional layout and especially the use of English all point to the obvious fact - that when Lebanon is no longer a war zone and Hezbollah can no longer control reporters directly, they can still create photo-ops that will be irresistable to some photographers. And the photographers are more than happy to take the bait.

That gigantic poster, with the picture of devastation followed by "Made in USA", was not cheap. It was not made in a garage. It was planned carefully and paid for with the entire purpose of not increasing Hezbollah's influence in Lebanon, but in manipulating world public opinion.

In fact, I imagine the Lebanese people would be quite insulted at a picture of their town in ruins followed by the words "The Divine Victory."

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

A Child Killed and His Brother Wounded When They Foozled with a Rocket in Beit Hanoun

On Monday noon, 28 August 2006, a child was killed and his brother was wounded as they foozled with a locally made rocket near their house in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun. In another incident, unknown gunmen fired at an officer of the Palestinian National Security Forces in Beit Lahia, but no casualties were reported.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 13:15 on Monday, 28 August 2006, a heavy explosion occurred in a room near a house belonging to Khaled Mohammed al-Za’anin in al-Qaraman Street in Beit Hanoun. As a result, the owner’s son, 17-year-old Mohammed, was instantly killed, and his other son, 14-year-old Bilal, was injured by shrapnel throughout the body. The explosion occurred when the two brothers were foozling with a locally made rocket apparently stored in the room by Palestinian resistance activists.

Alas, no virgins for poor Mohammed. But it had been a couple of days since the last deadly "misuse of weapons" incident so I suppose that Mohammed's number was just up.

For the Palestinian Arabs, they can take solace in the fact that while Mohammed is not a martyr, they will make his death appear to be the result of Israeli actions when they issue press releases.

We now know of at least 63 dead Palestinian Arabs who were violently killed due to other PalArabs since the Israeli offensive began.

Unlike other visitors taking the Hezbollah Guided Tour of Southern Beirut, Jesse Jackson does not seem to require the Party of God's assistance in looking for photogenic rubble to pose with. And this morning's featured AP Beirut photographer is a more than willing participant.

Veteran US civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, third right, and his son Jonathan, right, speak to an unidentified local Lebanese woman as they stand on the rubble of her apartment building in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, which was destroyed during an attack by Israeli forces in the 34-day Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

And here he is shortly afterwards, as his son and the Lebanese woman (and the Hezbollah handler) disappear so Jesse can get his close-up in front of the same building.

One can almost imagine the AP photographer and Jesse Jackson conferring over the lighting and composition.

Others have shown that Walt and Mearsheimer have gone way beyond anything approaching objectivity when the subject is Israel. Here is just one tiny point I noticed in the transcript of yesterday's C-SPAN CAIR/Walt/Mearsheimer Israel hatefest:

Today, Israel is said to be a key ally in the war on terror and in our efforts to combat rogue states like Syria and Iran. But there are several big problems with this line of argument.

First, it has the causal logic backwards. We don't back Israel because we have a common threat from terrorism; rather, we have a common threat from terrorism because we have been so closely tied to Israel. That's not -- again, let me be very clear here: That's not the only reason. I am not saying that our unconditional support for Israel is the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is a very important one.This was clearly stated in the 9/11 commission report.

Walt's denial notwithstanding, that is exactly what he says when he says that the causal logic os backwards - if America's support of Israel wasn't the major cause of terror in his twisted world, he couldn't say that the causal logic was backwards.

Beyond that, the 9/11 Commission report is online, so it is easy to see exactly how "clearly" they state this. Here is the Report's listing of the reasons why Bin Laden hates the US:

As we mentioned in chapter 2, Usama Bin Ladin and other Islamist terrorist leaders draw on a long tradition of extreme intolerance within one stream of Islam (a minority tradition), from at least Ibn Taimiyyah, through the founders of Wahhabism, through the Muslim Brotherhood, to Sayyid Qutb. That stream is motivated by religion and does not distinguish politics from religion, thus distorting both. It is further fed by grievances stressed by Bin Ladin and widely felt throughout the Muslim world—against the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, policies perceived as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim, and support of Israel. Bin Ladin and Islamist terrorists mean exactly what they say: to them America is the font of all evil, the “head of the snake,” and it must be converted or destroyed.

It is not a position with which Americans can bargain or negotiate.With it there is no common ground—not even respect for life—on which to begin a dialogue. It can only be destroyed or utterly isolated.

What is clear from here is that Bin Laden's blaming US support for Israel was tertiary at best.

Here's what the report says about Saudi resentment of the US:

Saudis are angry too. Many educated Saudis who were sympathetic toAmerica now perceive the United States as an unfriendly state. One Saudireformer noted to us that the demonization of Saudi Arabia in the U.S. mediagives ammunition to radicals, who accuse reformers of being U.S. lackeys.Tensof thousands of Saudis who once regularly traveled to (and often had homesin) the United States now go elsewhere.17

Among Saudis, the United States is seen as aligned with Israel in its conflictwith the Palestinians,with whom Saudis ardently sympathize.Although SaudiArabia’s cooperation against terrorism improved to some extent after the September11 attacks, significant problems remained. Many in the Kingdom initiallyreacted with disbelief and denial. In the following months, as the truthbecame clear, some leading Saudis quietly acknowledged the problem but stilldid not see their own regime as threatened, and thus often did not respondpromptly to U.S. requests for help. Though Saddam Hussein was widelydetested, many Saudis are sympathetic to the anti-U.S. insurgents in Iraq,although majorities also condemn jihadist attacks in the Kingdom.18

Again, the US/Israeli seems to be far from the major or even a major factor in Saudi resentment for the US, contrary to Walt's pronouncement.

Finally, buried on page 376 of the Report we see this:

American foreign policy is part of the message. America’s policy choices have consequences. Right or wrong, it is simply a fact that American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world.That does not mean U.S. choices have been wrong. It means those choices must be integrated with America’s message of opportunity to the Arab and Muslim world. Neither Israel nor the new Iraq will be safer if worldwide Islamist terrorism grows stronger.

In the context of the Report, this is almost a footnote. Nowhere does the report imply that this is a "very important source" of anti-American terrorism. Even for what it does say, Walt is misinterpreting it - the report is not saying that it is American policy towards Israel that is the problem, but the fact that Arab opinion is fixated on that policy and not on the many times the US helps out the Muslim world. This section is talking about the US getting a message of freedom and hope to the entire Muslim world and how that message gets lost in the Muslim world's Jew-hating media glare.

For Walt to blame US policy on Israel for terror is equivalent to blaming a Danish newspaper for deadly Muslim cartoon riots. It is a typical liberal viewpoint where the perceived "victims" have no responsibilities whatsoever, and where any excuse they use for their terroristic behavior is taken at face value.

And for Walt to use the 9/11 Commission Report as evidence of his bizarre thesis shows that his own academic methods leave much to be desired. The best you can say is that he is taking words out of context in the report; more likely he is purposefully cherry-picking what he wants to see in a single line out of a 500 page report and ignoring the rest that actually does address the exact same issue in a far more accurate and academically responsible manner.

A Lebanese boy holds a picture of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah given to him to hold by adults before U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited the area in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which was repeatedly attacked by Israeli forces during the 34-day Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, Monday, Aug. 28, 2006. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

Who could those mysterious "adults" have been? Any possibility that they were members of, say, a terror group?

Lebanese children hold pictures of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah given to them to hold by adults before U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited the area in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which was repeatedly attacked by Israeli forces during the 34-day Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, Monday, Aug. 28, 2006. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

A Lebanese man holds a flip-flop shoe beside a Hezbollah protest banner depicting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice holding two dead children with the words 'the terrorist' written in Arabic, immediately after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited the area in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which was repeatedly attacked by Israeli forces during the 34-day Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, Monday, Aug. 28, 2006. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

Hezbollah's staged mini-demonstration in the southern suburb of Beirut has been exposed by unauthorized media footage. During a visit to the Hezbollah former "security square," destroyed during the war with Israel, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was greeted by a prepared crowd of Hezbollah militants. Accompanied by Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Seniora, Dr. Annan was escorted by Lebanese Army security, apparently very friendly with Hezbollah Department of Security. The Lebanese Army officers and Hezbollah were seen smiling at each other and coordinating the staged demonstration. A camera linked to an international media agency was broadcasting live from behind the Hezbollah's security lines. It captured the details of the "show." A group of women and girls, in traditional Muslim dresses and scarves were gathered by Hezbollah bearded security some 15 minutes before the motorcade arrives. The gathering was at about 30 feet away from where Annan's car was supposed to stop. This indicates that the motorcade security and the Hezbollah operatives knew ahead of time where the spot would be and had the women standing and waiting. Posters of Hassan Nasrallah were then distributed to the women. The camera showed a group of bearded men standing few meters behind the first line of women as a "second brigade." Then the camera showed the group of women tightening their positioning while few men with hats and "talkies" positioned themselves behind the women and started shouting orders: "Clap when Annan gets out of the car," they screamed to the women. The latter complied with "passion," raising the posters of Nasrallah. "Boo when Seniora appears," the Hezbollah's operators shouted. A huge boo was produced, not only by the women, but also by the men standing behind them.

As the UN delegation approached the group walking, the women screamed the name of Nasrallah and behind them couple men screamed "down, down, USA" (especially when the international media appeared). As soon as the officials walked farther, and as in a choreographed play, the women dispersed themselves opening the path for the militiamen looking males to rush behind the delegation walking through the ruins. Responding to orders barked form inside the group, the mens' "demo" got loud and slogans were shouted with greater energy and menace. Interestingly, and since the camera was filming live from behind and feeding it to satellite around the world, observers were able to "see" the whole operation to its most detailed developments. The last security men of the UN delegation facing the following crowd were smiling at the security cadres of Hezbollah and keeping the exact distance needed for the shouting to be heard and for the international cameras to film the delegation surrounded by angry people, hoping the sympathizing translators and editors would make the right comments on BBC, CNN, and of course on al Jazeera, and by the next morning, the right articles will be printed in the New York Times, the Guardian and Le Monde. The show got even more detailed, as the camera was feeding the footage live and raw, when a Hezbollah militiaman screamed at a media cameraman who had climbed onto rubbles to have a bigger view of the crowd and the whole picture. The Hezbollah operatives, along with a security man from the Lebanese Army rushed to remove the cameraman from where he was, which was logical, as he could have filmed the staging machine and more importantly the "size" of the demonstration. Back to the demonstration: the Lebanese state-security elements were telling the Hezbollah fellows, "tameem, azeem," (very good, excellent). The "commissaries" behind the lines of the males were changing the slogans from "Long live Nasrallah" to "Down with the US." In a few minutes, the delegation headed back to the cars, Kofi Annan apparently impressed with the "people's voice." When the convoy left, the men and women of Hezbollah's demonstration vanished leaving regular bystanders to themselves. Interestingly as well, whenever the camera showed a journalist, especially with cameras, a Hizbollah militiaman was just few feet away.

It is perfectly normal to get a pitcher of hot water, walk a few blocks with it and spoons and a table and a tray and a baby carriage and glasses, and enjoy some tea while feeding the baby in the most photogenic rubble in Lebanon.

Doesn't seem contrived at all!

But then again, this photographer seems to have a knack at finding people at just the most poignant time. It's clearly a talent:

A Lebanese boy sits 26 August 2006 amid the rubble of his home in the heavily damaged southern Lebanese town of Sidiqin.

Khiam, LEBANON: A Shiite Muslim Lebanese woman looks, 27 August 2006, at the rubble of the former Israeli-run prison of Khiam on the Lebanese-Israeli border. AFP PHOTO/PATRICK BAZ (Photo credit should read PATRICK BAZ/AFP/Getty Images)

Now, exactly why a woman would be hanging around the site of a prison remains a mystery.

Sunday, August 27, 2006

At least, for once, Reuters sort of admits that it is staged, or at least that the weddimg was orchestrated by Hezbollah. One must conclude that the overwhelming evidence of staged photos shown by the blogosphere is slightly affecting the way wire services are reporting the news.

I wonder what the captions in print media will say, though.

Abdallah Amhaz (L) and his bride Mona stand in the rubble of a destroyed building before their wedding, organized by Hizbollah, in a district that was damaged during the conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hizbollah in Beirut's southern suburbs, August 27,2006. REUTERS/Jamal Saidi (LEBANON)

Now, why would Hezbollah stage a wedding in a bombed out neighborhood if not so the press can take this very picture anf show it worldwide?

UPDATE: Here's a somewhat more accurate picture of the happy bride and groom:

"I hope that this never scares a single journalist away from coming to Gaza to cover the story because the Palestinian people are very beautiful and kindhearted," said Steve Centanni, a 60-year-old American reporter who was released along with cameraman Olaf Wiig, 36, of New Zealand. "The world needs to know more about them."..."My biggest concern really is that as a result of what happened to us, foreign journalists will be discouraged from coming to tell the story and that would be a great tragedy for the people of Palestine," Wiig said. "You guys need us on the streets, and you need people to be aware of the story."...The two journalists headed to Israel and were spending the night at the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem.

It is interesting that kidnapped journalists always seem to have the nicest things to say about their captors and Palestinian Arabs in general, but when push comes to shove, they always seem to feel safer with the "Zionist entity."

I spent the past week in Florida in a sprawling retirement community. The men at daily minyan always crack me up, sometimes on purpose and sometimes unwittingly. Here are some of the things I overheard, mostly this past week but a couple from previous trips.--Catching the end of a joke:"He says, 'Estelle! Where are you going?' Estelle answers, 'My father told me that on my wedding night I could go to town!'"--"Don't yell at me, I'm an old man!"--"In Boca Raton, they have minyan at 6:30, 7, 8 and 9 in the summer. Why don't we have so many minyanim here?""If we had that many, people would think we were retired!"--To a mostly bald man:: "Why do you have clips on your yarmulka? Are they clipping on to your skin?"--"Moshe one day had hagbah, and he dropped the Torah! He was so embarrassed that he ran out of the shul, and for the next six months he went to a club and worked out for hours every day. Finally he had a good set of muscles and walked back into the shul. They called him up and he picked up the Torah, threw it in the air with one hand, did two backflips, caught it again and then asked the gabbai, 'How do you like that?' The gabbai answered, 'That was very nice, but we gave you chamishi!'"--"Is anybody important sitting here?"--To one man: "Dovid, I don't care what they say about you, you're all right." To the next man: "Sam, I don't care what they say about you, you're all right."--"In shul, some of the ladies complain they're too hot, some are too cold."

"It's menopause! The New England Journal of Medicine should send some experts down here because our ladies have the longest change of life of anyone in history!"--Announcement at the bima. "Gentlemen, today is Mother's Day. Everybody take your mothers out to a nice dinner tonight."--"We noticed Sol didn't show up in shul for a couple of weeks. I started getting concerned, and called him - no answer. I was ready to call the police when I saw him at the store. I asked him, 'Are you OK?' He said 'Sure, I just got back from a two week cruise!'"--Posted from my Blackberry at the airport.

3. Emphasises the importance of the extension of the control of the government of Lebanon over all Lebanese territory in accordance with the provisions of resolution 1559 (2004) and resolution 1680 (2006), and of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, for it to exercise its full sovereignty, so that there will be no weapons without the consent of the government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the government of Lebanon;

Meaning that if Lebanon wants Hezbollah to continue to have weapons in the south, they can.

8. Calls for Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution based on the following principles and elements:

* Full respect for the Blue Line by both parties;* security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL as authorised in paragraph 11, deployed in this area;* Full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), that require the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of July 27, 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state;* No foreign forces in Lebanon without the consent of its government;* No sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its government;

Here it sounds like Lebanon may not allow Hezbollah to have weapons, nor to import weapons but again there are caveats that make it sound like the government may allow Hezbollah to purchase weapons if it wants to. Given the support that the Lebanese government showed Hezbollah during the war, it looks like Hezbollah will indeed become an autonomous unit of the Lebanese army, with a big wink from the government, and do whatever the hell it wants.

What are UNIFIL's responsibilities?

11. Decides, in order to supplement and enhance the force in numbers, equipment, mandate and scope of operations, to authorize an increase in the force strength of Unifil to a maximum of 15,000 troops, and that the force shall, in addition to carrying out its mandate under resolutions 425 and 426 (1978):

* a. Monitor the cessation of hostilities;

* b. Accompany and support the Lebanese armed forces as they deploy throughout the South, including along the Blue Line, as Israel withdraws its armed forces from Lebanon as provided in paragraph 2;

* c. Coordinate its activities related to paragraph 11 (b) with the government of Lebanon and the government of Israel;

* d. Extend its assistance to help ensure humanitarian access to civilian populations and the voluntary and safe return of displaced persons;

* e. Assist the Lebanese armed forces in taking steps towards the establishment of the area as referred to in paragraph 8;

* f. Assist the government of Lebanon, at its request, to implement paragraph 14;

12. Acting in support of a request from the government of Lebanon to deploy an international force to assist it to exercise its authority throughout the territory, authorizes Unifil to take all necessary action in areas of deployment of its forces and as it deems within its capabilities, to ensure that its area of operations is not utilised for hostile activities of any kind, to resist attempts by forceful means to prevent it from discharging its duties under the mandate of the Security Council, and to protect United Nations personnel, facilities, installations and equipment, ensure the security and freedom of movement of United Nations personnel, humanitarian workers, and, without prejudice to the responsibility of the government of Lebanon, to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence;

13. Requests the secretary general urgently to put in place measures to ensure Unifil is able to carry out the functions envisaged in this resolution, urges member states to consider making appropriate contributions to Unifil and to respond positively to requests for assistance from the Force, and expresses its strong appreciation to those who have contributed to Unifil in the past;

14. Calls upon the government of Lebanon to secure its borders and other entry points to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent of arms or related materiel and requests Unifil as authorised in paragraph 11 to assist the government of Lebanon at its request;

Now, keeping in mind the idea of a Hezbollah that is an official part of the Lebanese army just as it is an official part of the Lebanese government, what can one make of this:

Annan said that the U.N. force would be able to deploy along the Lebanese-Syrian border to help prevent weapons shipments to Hezbollah, but only if the Lebanese government asked for such help. Lebanon, to date, as neither asked for this nor ruled it out — but Syrian President Bashar Assad has strongly objected.

"It is generally accepted that the disarmament of Hezbollah cannot be done by force," Annan told reporters. "The troops are not going there to disarm Hezbollah, let's be clear on that."

Lebanon is against the deployment of United Nations peacekeeping forces along its border with Syria, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi has told AFP.

"Only the Lebanese army is in charge of controlling the borders with Syria and it is out of the question to deploy the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL)," he said Friday.

"These are ideas put forward by Israel and the United States, but Lebanon does not take orders from anyone, neither the United States, nor Israel, nor Syria, norIran," he said.

Putting it all together, assuming that Hezbollah will indeed become a part of the Lebanese army, we have three effective armies in Lebanon all ostensibly doing the same job - to defend "Lebanon" against Israel.

The Lebanese army will not do anything to stop Hezbollah, and in the past it never did. The UN is under specific mandate to only do things that the Lebanese government requests, with the notable exception of protecting Lebanese civilians from attack (but not to protect Israeli civilians from attacks that originate in Lebanon!)

This is not a "peacekeeping" force - this is outsourcing!

As we've already seen, the new UNIFIL is happy to monitor and report on Israeli violations of the cease fire, but it ignores Hezbollah violations. So UNIFIL is essentially providing the Hezbonese army with manpower and equipment to fight the Zionist enemy. The Lebanese government will not do anything to upset Hezbollah or Syria, and the UN will not do anything to upset the Lebanese government.

This is the real legacy of 1701. Kofi already knows this as he emphasizes that UNIFIL will not stop arms smuggling not will it disarm Hezbollah - the two most important parts of 1701 from the free world's perspective.

Another top Hamas activist told the Post that his movement's investigations have shown that the two journalists were initially kidnapped by members of one of the PA's security forces. "The kidnappers, who wanted to put pressure on the Palestinian leadership to pay them their salaries, later handed the two over to Fatah gunmen," he said. "They are now being held in one of the refugee camps near Gaza City."

PA security sources said they did not rule out the possibility that Fatah gunmen were holding the two journalists. "There are many rumors in the Gaza Strip and we are checking them," the sources said. "In the past, we've had several cases where Fatah-affiliated gunmen and disgruntled security officers kidnapped foreigners."

Sounds like the solution is to pay these poor disgruntled policemen a salary, so they can magically transform from criminals into respected upholders of the peace again!

...For Hezbollah, the ruins of this once-bustling neighborhood have become a tourist attraction--and an invaluable propaganda tool.

Hezbollah began offering tours of Haret Hreik during the war, assembling every morning at eleven o'clock. I went on the first of these excursions on July 20, along with the bulk of the international press corps--about 100 correspondents, from well-known TV anchors to grubby freelancers. Longtime Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Naboulsi showed up with his entourage and delivered a running patter of outrage. "On a daily basis, they come here and turn buildings into rubble, as you see," he shouted, in his frantic, high-pitched voice. "This is where we live! If the Israelis dare to confront us face to face, let them do it on the border, not come with jet fighters from high above in the sky, and just hit civilian targets!" He strode off into the wreckage, still shouting, and we scrambled to keep up.

Every once in a while, as we marched through the rubble, a man (never a woman) would pop out of a destroyed building to shout with carefully rehearsed rage. All of these appearances were orchestrated by Hezbollah for our benefit.

This was during the war. The media saw everything described here but purposefully ignored the theatrical aspects and dutifully photographed and quoted the actors as if they were real victims. With a few exceptions, no one in the media mentioned the staging, and even today they downplay it - because they perceive that they are reporting the Greater Truth, fake but accurate, and the consumers of the media back home are too unsophisticated to understand that the reporters are allowed to tilt the news towards their own preconceived ends.

But not to worry - the latest murderer was a policeman, so it was all OK.

On Tuesday noon, 22 August 2006, a woman was killed in the central Gaza Strip allegedly to protect family honor.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 13:00 on Tuesday, 22 August 2006, Faiza ‘Eid Abu Sawawin, 35, from al-Hasaina area in the west of Nusairat refugee camp, was brought dead to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. She was hit by several live bullets throughout the body. According to sources of the Attorney-General office in the central Gaza Strip, the victim’s brother, who is a member of the Palestinian Preventive Security Service and lives in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, shot her dead allegedly to protect his family honor.

It is so good to see that the rule of law reigns supreme in Gaza after Israeli withdrawal.

Since my last PalArab death count posting, we can add the unfortunately late Ms. Sawawin, as well as:

One more death from the "work accident" I mentioned last time; (I am not including the accidental self-inflicted shooting mentioned in this same link)

So our running total of Palestinian Arabs dead since the Israeli incursion in late June now stands at: 62. (I am certain that others have died from injuries mentioned in PCHR, but they never update the totals, so the number is definitely higher.)More than the number of civilians killed in Jenin and Qana combined!

Is all Arab life equally sacred? Apparently not - those Arabs killed by Jews in a defensive war are "martyrs" and worth a fortune in propaganda, as well as a literal fortune in compensation to their families from other Arab countries.

And those Arabs murdered by other Arabs are worthless, not even worthy of being mentioned in local Palestinian Arab English-language newspapers.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Normally, I see articles like this drivel in the op-ed sections of Al-Jazeerah.info or similar sites that pretty much publish anything anyone wants to say as long as it fits their agenda, facts be damned. But this is slightly more interesting because it was written by the Editor-in-Chief of the Arab News, which styles itself as a real news source. As such, it is important to, yet again, point out the half truths and outright falsehoods that characterize reasoned debate in the Arab world.

Arabs Can’t Be Anti-SemitesKhaled Almaeena, almaeena@arabnews.comLast week I wrote about the phone call from an Italian friend who asked me whether Islam and Muslims were characterized by fascist tendencies or beliefs. His query came as a result of US President George W. Bush’s unfortunate and ill-considered use of the phrase “Islamic fascists.”

Inaccurate and incorrect as the phrase is, it was not born from the brain of Bush — or even from the brains of his speechwriters. It was first used soon after Sept. 11, 2001, by Christopher Hitchens, a former diehard Marxist who is now a mainstay of the American neocons.

As anyone with a passing familiarity with English knows, saying that a group of terrorists are "Islamic fascists" does not mean that all Muslims are fascists. calling the phrase "inaccurate and incorrect" is nonsensical, unless the author is saying that the terrorists themselves have no desire to subjugate the world to Islam.

Also, the phrase was not first used by Hitchens, but was used as early as 1990 by historian Malise Ruthven and also before 9/11 by Muslim historian Khalid Duran who was criticizing extremist clerics and was in turn denounced by Muslims for that.

As a neocon, Hitchens enjoys great privileges and is a member in good standing of the media group which regularly attacks Muslims and Islam. His popularity is great in both neocon and Zionist circles. Included among those he is close to are Daniel Pipes, Richard Perle, David Horowitz — all closely associated with the American administration and its destructive and internationally unpopular policies over the last few years.

By sheer coincidence, I'm sure, Almaeena only mentions "neocons" who happen to be Jewish.

The word “fascist” seems to have been used because the Bush administration and its sycophants (the neocons, evangelists, extreme right-wingers and the Zionist lobby) have this false and preposterous idea that Islam wants to take over the world. They are convinced that Muslims want to conquer the entire world by force and convert everyone to Islam by the sword!

Have they drawn this conclusion based on what they know of the terrorists’ beliefs and practices or on the beliefs and practices of the 99.99 percent of Muslims who are not terrorists? And while, as always, our Arab media focuses on trivialities, their media is slowly and insidiously planting negative ideas about Arabs and their alleged anti-Semitism.

The author says that 99.99% of Muslims are not terrorists. That may be true - there may be only160,000 real, active Muslim terrorists on the planet out of 1.6 billion total. Perhaps he does not think that is a problem for Islam.

However, what Almaeeda is purposefully ignoring is the fact that a significant number of Muslims do support terror. One in four British Muslims felt that the 7/7 bombings were justified. If that is the number in a Western nation that was the victim of terror, it is not too hard to imagine that the numbers in Muslim nations go over 50% (or much higher.)

And, finally, can the author honestly say that the idea of re-establishing an Islamic caliphate is not seen as desirable in most of the Muslim world? Perhaps this caliphate would not take over the entire world, but the idea that people who support terror and have nuclear weapons want such sweeping political power is indeed a clear threat to the entire world.

Now we get from the naive to the stupid:

How, I wonder, can Arabs be anti-Semitic? They are in fact themselves Semites; the word derives from one of the sons of Noah — in English Shem — who was the ancestor of both Jews and Arabs. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “Semite” as “people who speak a Semitic language, including in particular the Jews and Arabs.” In other words, it would be highly unusual for Arabs to be anti-Semites though they might well be anti-Zionists. But that is not the same thing.

It is a pity that this editor could not trouble himself to look up the meaning of "anti-semite" in the same Oxford English Dictionary: